Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The Mercedes Marathon was this weekend. I only ran the half since my training has been so crazy lately. The weather was gorgeous. A little chilly at first, but it warmed up pretty quickly. I was able to wear shorts and short sleeves. The course changed this year and was much better than last year. I ended up doing the whole thing by myself. Two of the girls that I trained with to do the full were ahead of me and one was behind me because she was walk/running the whole thing. I’m kind of glad now that I ran the whole way by myself. It gives me confidence that I can run a full by myself if I need to.

I originally said that I didn’t like that the course was a double loop. I’m still not a big fan, but it was so cool to see the winner race by on his way to the finish (at that point I was around mile 9). There was a huge caravan of police and news vehicles surrounding him. That was pretty cool.

There was the traditional beer and donut “water” stop near the end of the race. I didn’t take any. I did have a fig newton and part of an orange during the race. I don’t even like oranges. Orange juice yes, but I don’t eat oranges. Well I ate this one and it was the best orange I’ve ever had. I had another one when I finished.

My friend Andrea was there at the finish line to greet me when I got done even though she wasn’t having the best day. I’m so glad she was there, otherwise no one would have cheered for me. (Eric was home sick, he’s still sick). She got to see the results of not using Body Glide on my inner thighs. They were bloody. It was yummy. My time was 2:40:44. Last year’s time was 2:44:48 so I improved my time by 4 minutes! Woot.

After the race I went to the Expo and got some food. Then I went back to the finish line to wait on the marathoners. Meg came in first looking strong. She and Ira started the race together. Ira showed up about 20 minutes later I think. She had some stomach problems throughout the course but she made it to the end. Linsday came in right before the six hour time limit. Her whole family was there to see her finish. She’s 60 years old and ran her first marathon. That’s awesome. Her son ran the marathon too. His first ever. And his longest training run was 8-10 miles. He finished in 4 ½ hours. Loser. He didn’t think he would finish that soon so none of his family was there.

That night we met up with the group at Sweet Bones Alabama for dinner. We had the back room of the restaurant and the service was horrible! It took 30 minutes to get our drink order . Finally we just paid for our drinks and drive down the road to Johnny Rockets. I ate way too much. A milkshake, fries and a cheeseburger. Obviously I wasn’t vegan or vegetarian that night. I need to get back on the bandwagon. I’m thinking of doing 30 days vegan again. Just need to pick a date.

I still want to run a full marathon. Right now I'm thinking of the Country Music Marathon which is in Nashville on April 25th. Still not decided about it though.

Pictures will come in the next post when I get them off of my camera and steal some that Andrea took!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

My running partner didn't show up this morning (got an email from her that she had a bad headache) so I ran by myself.

If you know me, you know that I HATE running by myself. If I had to do this on my own, I would have never started running. But I was up, it was 5:30 in the morning, I was 35 minutes from home so I sucked it up and did it. Five miles. It was warm outside so I actually broke a sweat. That hasn't happened in a while. We've had some very cold weather here lately. The sky was overcast, so while it wasn't very pretty, the warm temps and the chirping birds made up for it.

The first two miles were kind of rough for me. I was mentally psyching myself out the whole time. Once I got past the halfway point it was easier. I had some unpleasantness about midway through the run. A guy was coming up behind me and it was obvious that he was faster than me. But it seemed like he slowed down as he got closer to me. He sounded like a freaking clydesdale behind me. His footsteps were very heavy and he was panting very loudly. Then, when he was about five feet behind me it sounded like he hacked up part of his lung and spit it out on the sidewalk. Gross. At that point I slowed down so that he would finally pass me. Thankfully he did.

The rest of the run was uneventful. My left hamstring is still a little tight. It's not really sore anymore, but I can feel it, especially when I'm getting out of the car. It's making me feel old.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Again I’m bad at updating. It’s been over a month. There’s been a lot going on in that month.

I came down with strep throat which knocked me out for a while. I wasn’t able to run for about nine days. Missed my first 20 mile run. It took me awhile to recover from that.

I’ve also had some stress at wrok. My company let go 1200 people so I was super stressed out about that. Thankfully I still have a job.

The final straw came this past weekend. I ran 13 miles on Saturday. I was supposed to do 21 miles to keep up with the marathon training, but my left hip was hurting. The next day I could barely move. I did something to my hamstring. I haven’t run all week because of it. I finally took a spin class this morning and am planning on running tomorrow morning. But this means I’ll only be running the half marathon next weekend instead of the full. I’m sad, because I’ve been training for four months to do this. And it was going so well until I got sick. But there will always be other marathons. I’m going to run the half, confident that I can do it and I;ll be at the finish line to cheer my fellow runners on who are running the full.